46 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



What could we have done Avithout our railroads ? and what 

 interest more than any other built our railroads ? Agriculture 

 and her associate interests, without which they could not be 

 supported to-day. 



Look at California. A little more than twenty short years 

 have passed since the discovery of her gold. For ten years she 

 poured her vast treasures into the lap of the world, and still 

 she was poor in every qualification that makes a state great 

 and prosperous. She was a non-producer of the great staples. 

 She had but little agriculture, with a rich, virgin soil, and the 

 finest climate on the continent. She had no manufactures, 

 and consequently but little commerce. She was poor indeed 

 with all her gold. She saw her fault and wisely went to work 

 to correct it. 



She turned her attention to agriculture and manufjictures, 

 and to-day she holds an important position among the States. 

 There are two periods in the history of our country worthy 

 of note. The first w^as the action of England towards her 

 colonies previous to the Revolution. She held them in such 

 absolute subjection that beside the common domestic industry 

 and the ordinary mechanical employments, no kind of manu- 

 facturing was allowed. In 1750 a manufiictory of hats in 

 Massachusetts drew the attention and excited the jealousy of 

 Parliament. All colonial manufactories were declared to be 

 common nuisances, not excepting even forges, in a country 

 possessing in abundance every e^.ement for the manufacture of 

 iron. In 1770 the great Chatham, alarmed by the first manu- 

 facturing attempts of New England, declared that the colonies 

 ought not to be allowed to manufacture so much as a hob- 

 nail. 



The monopoly of manufacturing industry by the mother- 

 country was one of the principal causes of the American Revo- 

 lution. 



Freed from the trammels which had been imposed upon 

 them, and reduced consequently to their own resources for 

 the supply of their wants, the United States found during the 

 war that manufactures of every kind had received a remark- 

 able impulse, and that agriculture was deriving from them 

 such benefits that the value of the soil, as well as the wa<?es 

 of labor, were largely increased in spite of the ravages of war. 



